Governor Malloy and Ben Barnes Break Down the Budget

Today, Governor Dannel Malloy joins us once again for his monthly visit, and we will, as always, give you a chance to ask questions.

We’ll be focusing on the state budget today, and also joining us in-studio is Ben Barnes, Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management.

We’re going to be spending a lot of time referring to a three-part series written by Connecticut Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf. He’s our budget guru, and we always turn to him for questions about how our budget works. It is pretty epic and it paints a pretty bleak picture of the state’s outlook. But Keith also addresses the fact that this problem predates this governor’s term.

"They point our correctly that they inherited this mess," said Phaneuf to WNPR. "They're not the only people who were hoping the economy would do a lot better. They also point out it's a bi-partisan problem."

That “bi-partisan” problem started with a $3.7 billion deficit left over from the Rell administration. And, Keith’s story points out that Tom Foley, the Republican who narrowly lost to Malloy last election, expected even better results from the economic recovery.

That said, the administration’s own projections for tax revenue and savings from the state employee deal are falling short - and the series suggests that the latest budget plan “defers” the pain until the second term of this governor...or the first term of a new one.